Presto (2008) Movie Script

Hi, my name is Doug Sweetland, and I'm the director of Presto. I'd like to take this opportunity to just point out all the brilliant contributions of everyone who worked on this short, but, unfortunately, that would take the length of a feature, so I salute you, Presto crew. Presto crew forever. And, instead, we'll discuss some of the underlying ideas that are at the heart of Presto, things that we were thinking about while we were making this short. Starting out, it's clearly sort of a classic cartoon throwback, but with some key differences that I think make it intrinsically Pixar. First, the short takes place in real time, which means that we can't really cross dissolve from a gag to another, or from one set piece to another, as is often the case in old classic cartoons. Ours has to run in real time much more like its own sort of sequence in a feature or something. Which makes it, then, a self-contained story in five minutes, and not a serial. Lastly, it's entirely pantomimed, meaning that even though they have voices, we can't use jazzy dialogue to kind of push things along. One idea we wanted to convey early on is just that Presto is... Well, he's clearly a cad. And that even though he has these powerful magical hats, he doesn't really have any magical powers himself. And so, in a way, this whole act is sort of his exploitation of these hats and this rabbit, rather than by his own merit. In fact, a friend had pointed out how limited his imagination is. He has what might be the most powerful device in the world, this sort of teleportation device, and he only uses it to stage sort of a mediocre magic act. Another important concept from a character standpoint was just making Alec as sympathetic as possible. So here we are in sort of the gag onstage/offstage section of the short, and just notice that Alec's brows are incredibly sad. He's doing some sadistic things to Presto, but we just felt for the humanity of the short that he's not, himself, a sadist, he's actually incredibly apologetic and wishes that it didn't have to come to this, but it just simply must come to this. Really, that was, like, a tweak that came sort of late in the process and it came just right down to changing his brows. For the longest time, they were sort of like angry brows. And just lightening them up and making him look sorry, I think, adds to the sympathy and, hopefully, to the humor of that stretch. Another thing is just notice that he doesn't really ever move from that spot on the table and that's another important thing. You think classic cartoons, everything's got to be completely zany. But a lot of, hopefully, the humor and certainly the strength of Alec as a character stems from the fact that he's able to do all of these things without actually even really barely moving at all, certainly not his... If you're looking at his feet. And so, I think an interesting thing to point out, Presto has to move a tremendous amount. He's running up and down the stage, he's very physical. He affects Alec not at all. Alec, not moving, is able to then affect Presto a tremendous amount. Looking at the ladder gag, this is just an interesting example of the story process, that gag was really controversial just because its physics aren't sort of obvious. So we tried cutting it, but, actually, it made its way back in the reels simply as a way of getting Presto back to center stage so he could smash the carrot. That is interesting to me in that it didn't make its way back in by its own merit, but simply as this ulterior sort of choreography. Looking towards the end, there's actually a pretty huge hole in logic, and it's coming up. It's when Presto brings the carrot back. Now you remember when he smashes the carrot on the table, he has no intention or reason at all to save the carrot for later. But we get past this point where Alec has saved Presto's life and he's somehow able to play it off as if he'd intended to bring back the carrot the whole time. But, yet again, for no reason at all, and it's just interesting to me that in having shown this short around the world, no one has ever brought that up to me. The fact that it's basically this flawed logic, and I think it's because... I think, hopefully, the audience is invested so much in what's going on, on a character level, that they want Presto to bring the carrot back. And the fact that he's a magician and he performs a magician's trick is excuse enough to allow the carrot to sort of exist again. Another thing is it sets up Alec coming out of the hat at the end, which was intended sort of as an ironic resolution, that only when Presto completely gives up on the idea of trying to get Alec to come out of the hat, does Alec come out of the hat. Only when he makes a true gesture of reconciliation does he get what he wanted all along. So this is the happy ending that you don't normally see in classic cartoons. And I have to say, it worried me for a while that it might not play because it's sort of unconventional, but I am very satisfied now that we did, indeed, find the best ending for this short. It's one of my favorite parts. Lastly, I would just add that what you've watched is just a combination of unbelievable talents. Definitely plural. I don't think there's any one person's work over another, and, so again, I just sing the praises of absolutely everybody who contributed to this short. So that brings us to the end of Presto, and thank you very much for watching.